Recent Whiting Award winner Tony Tulathimutte discusses his first novel, Private Citizens, the state of satire in 2017, “booby-trapping” identity politics, and productivity in the Internet age. ...more

Tired of the incessant number of novels describing women in terms of their slender bodies, simple minds, or sexual status? Over at McSweeney’s, read this hilarious satire from Meg Ellison where the gender script is flipped, and men are written about with equally ridiculous objectification.

Are you in a rut with your writing? Blocked for ideas and inspiration? Finding those writing exercises designed to spark your imagination getting a little stale? Try some writing exorcises instead, courtesy of McSweeney’s. A little dark magic might go a long way to helping you buck those obstacles to your writing.

When I started reading this book, I hated it. I thought, this is what happens when an illustrator takes a shot at storytelling. It’s just one drawing after another until you hit the requisite 175 or so pages that equals “book.” I get even grouchier imagining that books like these are dreamed up as a way to re-market previously published short stories, and then padded out with sketchbook drawings.

The YA novel The Face on The Milk Carton has marked a thrilling yet disturbing rite of passage for many young readers over the past 25 years, iconic right down to its simple, haunting cover—which many of those readers could easily conjure from memory.

As the stump speeches and primary dates continue to roll on and thousands of Americans develop stress ulcers, Darcey Steinke delivers a humorous and terrifying vision of our dystopian future should Donald Trump win the presidential election. “The Blue Toes,” over at Catapult, features a distinctly Trump-like figure called “the Tomato” and his followers, the eponymous “Blue Toes,” who rise up after the polls are called and flock to New York City to oust the liberals:

The livestream camera fixed on the side of the road showed the Blue Toes moving thick and fast.

In the imagined scenario wherein my apartment burns to the ground and I lose all my worldly possessions, there are just a few things I would miss—family photographs (of course), an old wooden trunk my grandmother reupholstered and that I used to store my toys as a child, and the book, John Black’s Body.

There is, in fact, a widespread view that humor abandons its true purpose when it ceases to punch upward from below, when it ceases to play David to the great Goliath of state or society, and instead punches down, targeting the weak and the downtrodden, the suckers and the yokels.

Awe-inspiring literary legacy aside, one thing is for certain: Jane Austen could definitely hang. A new collection of some of her shorter works shows the writer in peak form, sharply mocking her social milieu with expert comedic timing:

Has the US turned into a satire of itself? Consider how quickly Congress has gone from championing Freedom Fries to chastising President Obama’s absence from the Paris peace march. Over at the LA Times, David L. Ulin looks at why Americans are choosing irony over satire:

Is it coincidence, then, that the rise of postmodernism in the 1970s overlaps almost exactly the decline of satire?

Millennials may love their listicles, memes, and Internet kitsch, but they also love books. A new Pew study has shown the Millennials are more likely to read than older generations. And all those books are fodder for less serious content, like spoof rap videos, with books as their muse.

Over at the New Yorker, read an excerpt from Mike Sacks’s upcoming Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations with Today’s Top Comedy Writers. The selection features an interview with George Saunders, in which the writer talks about his upbringing, getting inspiration for characters from working in a restaurant, Mark Twain, comedy, and humor versus satire.

The New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium is a weekly forum for discussing the tradition and future of text/image work. Open to the public, it meets Monday nights at 7-9pm EST in New York City. Presentations vary weekly and include everything from historical topics and technical demonstrations to creators presenting their work.

From his boy-next-door looks, you sure wouldn’t peg Eminem as superstar material. But put a beat behind him, and he turns from a feisty-cute Detroit blonde into a raging microphone demon. His autobiographical film 8 Mile is a riveting account of coming up as a male rapper in the inner city.

“Then again, you might not be the funny type. How about making the rejection letter poignant, depressing, or even hurtful? Push the envelope. Your audience is a bunch of bored writers begging for a little drama in their pathetic lives. Never be sort of poignant!

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